After leaving Nassau Hall, a busy respite

Five years after stepping down from the University presidency, Harold Shapiro GS '64 is finally getting a chance to relax, but that doesn't mean he's slowed down.

Shapiro is teaching two classes this term and doing his own research on bioethics. He has also published two books in the last year, chaired a nonprofit organization and played an active role in several committees.

And, for the first time ever, he and his wife Vivian have been able to indulge in their love of opera. "My wife and I are big opera fans," he said in an interview. "This is the first time in our lives that we have had the chance to buy series tickets and go during the year."

Shapiro, 71, is busy — but that's how he likes it. "I'm glad to be busy," he said. "That's not a complaint."

The shift from the presidency has made the Shapiros' life calmer, more like it was before Shapiro became president of the University of Michigan in 1980. "I tell my children I'm back where I started from," he said.

Back to teaching

This semester, Shapiro, a professor of economics and public affairs, is teaching a doctoral seminar in the Wilson School on ethics in science and research, as well as an undergraduate course on bioethics.

"I really enjoy teaching with Harold because he's such an excellent, thorough, thoughtful teacher. I feel like I learn a lot from watching him in the classroom," said sociology professor Elizabeth Armstrong, who co-teaches the doctoral seminar with Shapiro.

The co-taught class deals with ethics in higher education and research, specifically the "absolute no-nos" like plagiarism and data fabrication, as well as the relationship between student and teacher, Armstrong said, explaining that Shapiro draws on his 21 years of experience as president of Michigan and Princeton.

"He's not betraying any confidences or betraying any names," Armstrong said, "but ... he saw all the skeletons in the closet, all the dirty laundry, all the bad things that go on in academia and how to deal with those problems and make decisions about them."

Shapiro also has the time to advise a former student of his Bioethics course. Nathan Harbacek '07 took Shapiro's "Special Topics in Bioethics and Public Policy" last year and asked the former president to advise his thesis in chemistry and the Wilson School. Shapiro has advised several other theses in the Wilson School since retiring.

Harbacek chose Shapiro, whom he describes as "grandfatherly," because he "really respected [Shapiro's] opinion as a mentor and [considered him] somebody who really strongly understood the issues at hand."

In the 2003-04 fiscal year, the most recent year when data are available, Shapiro was among the highest-paid employees of the University, bringing in $499,000.

Within and beyond the University

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Shapiro just published "A Larger Sense of Purpose: Higher Education and Society," a compilation of lectures he delivered in 2003 at the University of California. Last fall, he published a book on bioethics called "Belmont Revisited: Ethical Principles for Research with Human Subjects."

His work has also extended largely into the public sector. He recently chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee focused on planning the future of research in elementary particle physics.

He is also chairman of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a nonprofit that supports programs on science, technology and education.

Despite all the projects Shapiro has taken on in recent years, life is more relaxed for him and his wife. The Shapiros have had more time for weekend trips to New York and for visiting their four children and 11 grandchildren around the country.

"I think being president of a major research university like Princeton carries a lot of responsibility in many ways," Vivian Shapiro said. "It takes an enormous amount of energy and I think that it's nice to be able to go back to your own field and be able to have a chance to explore things that are a little less rushed and that's nice after all this time."

"It has been a shift in the sense that we have more flexibility in our life," she added.

Though Shapiro is no longer in office, his presence continues to influence the presidency today.

"I certainly do look to his presidency to inform my decisions," President Tilghman said in an email. "It is often that I think, 'Now what would Harold think about this?' He approached his own decisions with a strong moral compass, and with the absolute conviction that there is nothing we do at Princeton that we cannot do even better."

Looking back on his presidency, Shapiro said that he was very proud of the financial aid initiative introduced during his presidency, which eliminated loans and replaced them with grants, as well as the idea of mixing two and four year colleges and increasing the emphasis on graduate teaching.

"I always regret the fact that we can't do more," Shapiro added. "There's always a bigger agenda than you can do."